Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman released the EP Lady of the Lake over the summer, but it has now arrived on vinyl via Jalopy Records.

Brooklyn-based Brown is a young banjoist/vocalist who has appeared at Newport Folk Festival, The Kennedy Center, Trans-Pecos Festival, globalFEST, and more, and her compatriot is award-winning fiddle player and fellow Brooklynite Stephanie Coleman. The duo have also headlined a sold out Brooklyn Folk Festival.

Coleman learned the instrumental title track from a performance by Eric Merrill at the fiddle competition in West Virginia’s Appalachian String Band Music Festival, aka “Clifftop.” The song originated with Galax, VA fiddler Parley Parsons via the fiddle and banjo player Paul Brown.

Coleman has recorded and toured internationally with artists such as all-women stringband Uncle Earl, Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Aoife O’Donovan, and clawhammer banjo player Adam Hurt.

The EP was produced, recorded, and mixed by Peter K. Siegel, who recorded Neil Young, Joseph Spence, and Doc Watson, among other things, as well as making vital field recordings on musicians from Indonesia, India, China, and Sweden.

Of the duo, Siegel says:

I was a big fan of both Nora and Steph when they were performing separately. Their new collaboration is more than the sum of its parts. They make their virtuosity so much fun to listen to. Their music is deeply rooted in American tradition, but the excitement of their performances is all theirs.

The EP follows the duo playing two sold-out shows in London last year, performing festivals in Canada, England, and Denmark, completing a Spring 2023 tour of Japan, a recent appearance on WNYC’s tastemaker Soundcheck show, and the duo’s west coast debuts with concerts in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA.

Nora Brown & Stephanie Coleman US Tour Dates

March 30 – Queens, NY – Kupferberg Center (with Jackson Lynch, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Ukrainian Village Voices)

April 20 – Saugerties, NY – The Local